James Strahan.
B
BAAL. — Baal (Ro 11*, in a quotation from 1 K 19'^) was a generic name for a god among Semitic peoples, the literal meaning being 'owner 'or 'lord.' Attempts have been made to show that this was the original name of the Sun-god, or that it represents the Supreme Being worshipped by the Canaan- ites. Neither of these contentions can be proved ; indeed it is evident that the Baal of one place differed from that of another. Thus the reference in the text is to Melkart, the Baal of Tyre. The feminine article (ry BadX) in the Greek of Ro 1 1* is due to the frequent substitution of bCsheth (in Greek alaxiv-q), 'shame,' for Baal by the Hebrews.*
LiTERATCRB.— A. S. Pcake, art. 'Baal' in UDB; G. F. Moore in EDi\ L. B. Paton in ERE; W. R. Smith, RS^, London, 1894, p. 93 ff. F, W. WORSLEY.
• Hence frequently in LXX r] BaoA (=^ aXaxOvri), tliough in 1 K 19I'* the reading is rw BaoA.
BABBLER (Ac 17"). — Augustine and Wyclif wrongly derive the word ffTrep/jLo\6yoi from awelpu) \6yovi and translate it ' sower of words.' It is properly derived from <nripfw., ' seed,' and \4yeiv, 'to gather.' Originally an adjective, the derived substantive was used of small birds gathering crumbs (Aristophanes, Av. 233, 580). It was after- wards applied to loafers in the market-place who gained a precarious livelihood by what they could pick up, and it thus connotes 'a vulgar fellow,' ' a parasite.' Greek writers used it as a term of con- tempt for plagiarists and pseudo-philosophers (cf. Eustathius on Homer, Odyss. v. 490), and Zeno thus names one of his followers. W. M. Ramsay (St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen, 1895, p. 242) speaks of the word as 'characteristically Athenian slang, clearly caught from the very lips of the Athenians.' Th'e word thus conternptuou!5]y implies one who is an outsider and yet wishes to pose as one of the inner circle, and probably does
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not refer to anything that the Apostle had said. It would seem, therefore, that the expression was used by the philosophers who liave just been mentioned rather than by the populace in general. They resented the intrusion of one wlio had no credentials, and from the first viewed him with hostility (see, further, Ramsay, ' St. Paul in Athens,' in Expositor, 5th ser., ii. [1895] 262 ff.
F. W. WORSLEY.
BABBLINGS (1 Ti 6^, 2 Ti 2'« ^e^nkovs Kevo<pcovlas). — The ' profane babblings, and the oppositions of the knowledge which is falsely so called' are all profitless speculation and empty religious talk which only minister questions, but have no value in the equipment of a man of God, or in the build- ing up of the Church. The implied contrast is between intellectualism in religion and genuine piety in heart and life (of. F. Godet, Expositor, 3rd ser., vii. [1888] 45 If.).
Some have seen in ' the oppositions {ivrtOia-eis) of the knowledge which is falsely so called,' a reference, covert or open, to Marcion's Antitheses ; but this has scarcely been made out, and it is better to take tlie words as pointing to an incipient Gnosticism, hardlj' yet conscious of itself, against which the writer — be he St. Paul or a Paulinist — warns his readers (cf. M. Dods, Introd. to NT, London, 1888, p. 174). The Greek mind was always desirous of being saved by dialectic, and ready to hear or to tell some newer thing (cf. Ac 17^^). In tlie fermenting vat of the Greek cities in the Apos- tolic as well as in the sub-Apostolic Age there were frothy, Avindy men who knew everything about religion except ' the practick part ' (cf. Didache, ii. 40-45 : ovK ?<TTai 6 X670S crou \pev5rji, 01/ /ce«'6s, aWd IMefieffTio/ji^vos irpd^ei — 'Thy speech .shall not be false, nor empty, but tilled with doing '). Practical piety is the writer's theme, <'ind he calls Christians to cultivate simplicity as it is in Jesus; not to lose themselves in a cloud of words, but to be direct and devout. Cf. A. Rowland (1 Tim., London, 1887) : ' It is easier to quibble over Christ's words than to imitate His life.' To the same etiect, Butler [Charfje to the Clergy) advises them 'not to trouble about objections raised by men of gaiety and speculation,' but to endeavour to beget a prac- tical sense of religion ' upon the hearts of the people' (cf. EBi iv. 5094).
The standing tj^pe of the religious babbler is Bunyan's 'Talkative,' who will 'talk of things Heavenly or things Earthly . . . things sacred or things profane, things past or things to come, things more essential or things circumstantial.' To this masterly characterization ' of the evil ex- cesses of some of the prophets, lunatic preachers, and loquacious hypocrites ' in Puritan times may be added R. H. Hutton's description (Contemporary Thought and Thinkers, London, 1894, i. 257) of a certain rampant sceptic of yesterday as a man ' hurling about wildly loose thoughts over which he has no intellectual control.' These are the profane babblers of the Pastoral Epistles. They were not only unsettling to the Church — ' If I had said " I will speak thus," I should have been faith- less to the generation of thy children,' Ps 73^^ — but the unreal words corrupted the babbler himself, as the writer not obscurely hints. His nature is subdued to what he works among (cf. Emerson : ' I cannot listen to what you are saying for thinking of what you are ').